1. Field of the Invention
The present invention is directed to the bulk storage and distribution of discs from a hopper assembly and more particularly to the selective distribution of discs that are sequentially guided to an exit opening for a speedy discharge to a desired direction.
2. Description of Related Art
Disc delivery apparatuses for delivering monetary coins, medallions, tokens, or the like, for use in a money exchanger, a coin dispenser, a ticket vending machine, an arcade game, a gambling game machine, or the like, are known in the art. Bulk discs are generally stored within a hopper and selectively discharged in accordance with a controller to a user. The coin dispensing industry has attempted to increase the speed and anti-jamming features of such coin dispensers. Frequently, it is desirable to not only select and dispense a disc or a coin, but to further divert the disc to different locations. For example, a supplemental lock box can be provided to divert excess coins to a storage device when they are not needed for dispensing to the user. A slot machine in the gaming industry may accept quarters from a player during the play of the slot machine and can also dispense the quarters as a jackpot if the user aligns a winning combination of images. If the deposited coins exceed the desired reserve of bulk coins necessary for a jackpot, it can be desirable to divert some of the coins to an auxiliary lock box within the gaming machine for storage.
Thus, the prior art has proposed various devices to not only accelerate the dispensing of the coins or discs from an exiting disc passageway, but has also proposed guiding the dispensed coins in different directions. An example of such a device can be found in the Japanese Laid Open Publication No. 10-49725 and Laid Open Publication No. 9-305817. These references disclose a storage hopper for coins having an elevated coin passageway wherein coins can be delivered from a rotating selector in the storage hopper to be elevated to a discharge device that can selectively discharge individual coins in one of two passageways or directions.
The prior art is seeking to increase the speed of dispensing such coins, while eliminating the possibility of jammed coins at such discharge devices.
The present invention provides a disc guiding device that is capable of directing discs to a desired location. The disc guiding device can be installed as original equipment on, for example, a coin discharging apparatus, or can be retrofitted to such equipment. The disc guiding device can be attached to a coin passageway that has coins or discs being guided from a bulk storage hopper. The disc guiding device connects its guiding passageway to the passageway from the coin hopper to guide and align individual discs in an exit position on the guiding passageway. A pushing device can contact a disc located at the exit position, and can move the disc out of the guiding passageway. An adjacent diverter unit with diverting passageways can receive the disc and direct it to the desired location. A supporting device, such as a conical roller, can be positioned traverse to the exit position to initially receive an upper edge of a disc to align the disc in an operative position for subsequent contact with the pushing device wherein the disc is positioned at an inclined angle to a longitudinal axis of the guiding passageway. The pushing device can have a cam surface and be spring biased to cause a pair of rollers to contact a lower surface of the disc and eject it from the exit position. The conical roller can be further spring biased to initially contact an upper edge of the disc as it is translating along the guiding passageway and to partially move upward with the disc until it is properly aligned in an inclined position in the exit position of the guiding passageway. The cam surface of the pushing device can move the lower edge of the disc onto a rotatable roller positioned adjacent the lower surface of the exit position whereby the disc is released into the diverting passageway. The diverting passageway can have an inverted V shape with a roller positioned at the apex of the lower surface of the V shape to further reduce friction during the release of the disc. The diverter unit can further have a roller mounted on a movable lever that can be controlled by a motive device, such as a solenoid, to block one of two directions in the diverter passageway for direction of the disc to the desired location. The above combination of features and sub-combination of features permit a high speed, low friction, discharging of discs to desired directions.